


just like it was before

by inkwellhell (georgewashingmachine)



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Lots of Thinking, Love, M/M, Oneshot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, character study kinda, donny is a big bisexual, first kiss mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 14:52:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13661292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgewashingmachine/pseuds/inkwellhell
Summary: Things are going to be just like it was before. When Donny comes back, everything will be like he imagined.Oh, how wrong was he.





	just like it was before

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello i love donny nova with all my heart so here's some writing stuff ab him yeah

He wants desperately for things to be the same. He aches for the familiarity, aches for what will never come, aches for things to be different. He longs for the boy he loved to be standing at his side, but all he gets is dusty air and a dull reminder of war. He yearns naively, the logical part of his brain stern in the fact that Michael wasn’t there and he wasn’t coming back, and the irrational part telling him that it was all his fault and that anyway all that didn’t matter, because things were going to be just how you left it. 

 

But, oh, did Cleveland change in his absence.

 

He had assumed that it would always be the same, always be how it had been in their dreams. They would return from the war and get on that train headed for _New York City_ and start a band together and play music for the rest of their lives.

 

But Donny was met with the new, foreign place that used to be home, like it had never truly been home at all and he had found his home with Michael, but now his home was demolished and he was forced to find somewhere else to stay. Sure, those who remembered him were friendly, but it was different, their familiarity almost desaturated, like colors that were once bright and lively had now washed out to duller hues. It was like he’d been away for nearly four years and new people came to town and eventually Donny’s name, voice, _presence_ , was all but lost to a memory, and the people he’d known were just regaining their memories now, their recollection of him replaced with the dashing, baby-faced eighteen-year-olds that were all new and shiny, making the just-as-fresh girls swoon. Actually, that’s exactly what had happened, but Donny wasn’t quite ready to accept that.

 

And so, he coped. Albeit unhealthily, with vodka and gin and late nights and insomnia. And making himself go insane searching for gigs, and the endless frustration when he went days with no new money in his pockets. There was more alcohol and not enough sleep and crushed sheets of music and shattered notes of piano. There were trashcans filled to the brim and drained bottles decorating the piano and the room around him. There were days he’d go hungry just because he would forget to eat because he was too focused on everything else, days where he’d beg himself for a good night of sleep and frustrated crying and when it never came. There were nights where he forgot Michael altogether in the whirl of his thoughts and nights where all he could think about was Michael. There were flashbacks to dark days he wished he could forget, and more alcohol to follow that to drown everything out, and reddened knuckles from where his fist hit the wall in pure frustration because he was sick and tired and he was sick and tired of being sick and tired. He drove himself crazy and he absolutely hated it, which is why he was oh-so ecstatic when he heard his radio announce the contest.

 

Things were...rocky, afterward. His newly acquired band members could be a pain in the ass, and Donny got discouraged too easily, and there were times when he was mere seconds away from calling it quits, but then he would remember everything, remember the promise of the radio, remember the promise of the band he and Michael would create, and he would lift his head up and power through.

 

Everything was happening all so fast. Donny found himself in one of the few moments he’d found he could just stop and catch his breath and think: he and Julia were seated at his piano, brainstorming _I Got a Theory_.

 

Julia Trojan.

 

She was…the best thing to happen to him, ever, and also the worst. She was too similar to her husband and he hated it, and yet he loved it at the same time. She was incredible and fucking _talented_ in the best ways and he couldn’t deny just how much he loved her, despite her close connection to Michael. It was like the universe had gone and created the most perfect human imaginable and gave Donny a chance with them, and then he’d gone and fucked it all up, fucked it all up in the absolute worst way possible, and then the universe had gifted him a second chance with the female version, and now the universe was watching him like a hawk and ordering him not to screw it all up again, because this was his last chance with this insanely perfect human being. She was similar to Michael, she was different from Michael. She was Michael himself and also her own person. He didn’t know what to think—it was hard, sifting through his love for both Julia and Michael and trying to make any sort of sense of it all.

 

Maybe he was too afraid for things to end up like they had with Michael. Maybe he just wasn’t ready for another relationship. Maybe he would never be ready for another relationship. Maybe he was just thinking about it all too much.

 

No matter how much he attempted to explain it, he would never find some sort of reasonable solution, so he shook his head and put it aside for future Donny to deal with.

 

And future Donny dealt with it, outside his hotel room, questioning everything but also questioning nothing. They were talking and he wasn’t quite sure what she was saying because he was too busy thinking, and suddenly they were kissing and _god it felt so right_.

 

Which was odd, because he could only think of his first kiss with Michael in that moment, and how he’d had that same feeling of _god it feels so right_.

 

Maybe he should stop connecting this all to Michael. Maybe he should just start living in the moment, instead of being stuck in the past for fucking ever. He never would be over what happened to Michael, he decided. But maybe that was okay. And maybe it was okay that things weren’t the same, that things weren’t like it was before, because he had _this_ , he had _Julia_ , and that was enough to get him through the days. He was learning. He still had a lot to learn. But that would come in time. And so, all he could do was accept that and move forward, into a new day, into a new life, into a better place, with the dazzling Julia Trojan at his side the whole way through.


End file.
